Biographies

What’s the most interesting biography or memoir you’ve read?

April 21, 2012

A Great Biography

Roosevelt

The rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. Edmund Morris’s clear admiration for his subject is contagious. I have learned about Teddy Roosevelt’s accomplishments throughout school but through Edmund Morris’s biography I understand the influences that shaped and formed our President Theodore Roosevelt.

Small town politics

Tags

current-events, nasty politics, politics, postaday2012, school district superintendent

I have written a fair share of posts railing against the political process and particularly against the republican party in its present day incarnation but I am always blown away at how nasty politics can get even at the local level. My small town government is preparing for its annual town meeting. Essentially, that means every department needs to have their budget ready for review, the finance committee needs to have their reports ready in order to answer any questions from the constituents. This process has spawned so many rude e-mails directed against my hubby, the current chairman of the board. In particular there was one that was written by the school district superintendent, who impolitely told my hubby to cease with the sermons from his exalted position. This rudeness came from my hubby asking the superintendent to recuse himself from being the moderator of the annual town meeting since the school budget and its vote will take place during our town meeting. My hubby felt that him being the superintendent and serving as moderator constituted a conflict of interest since the school budget includes his salary and yearly raise. My hubby asked the superintendent in a brief e-mail, after consulting with town council, to recuse himself because of the conflict of interest. I read what he had written and it wasn’t disrespectful or dismissive. The superintendent apparently chose to take it personally. I find it sad that my hubby, acting in the interests of the town, gets told off by a school official. It makes you wonder how people want to be in politics because this isn’t an isolated incident. My hubby isn’t alone in getting insulted or yelled at, the other selectmen have had their share of unpleasantness. People in political life need to have tough skin.

Barbara Boxer: ‘If You’re A Self-Respecting Human Being, Vote Obama’

As a woman what I find to be central to the whole “war on women” is that it is all one-sided. The barrage of legislation either repealed or introduced is all coming from the GOP party across the board. On this issue, denying women years of hard fought advances, the GOP is absolutely unified. Everything that the GOP stands for is defined by privilege. Healthcare isn’t a right, it’s a privilege. Education isn’t a right, it’s a privilege. Having children is also a privilege and certainly it is not a right, but when women of small means need help to access birth control, the GOP wants to deny them that and heavens forbid, poor women would seek an abortion, the GOP would deny them that as well. The GOP, from my perspective, seems to want to expand the poor class, getting rid of minimum wage, repealing equal pay laws, repealing Obamacare, gutting public education, gutting Planned Parenthood and the list goes on. How does this list not get publicized more often by the traditional news media?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Christian Conservatives Plot Defeat For ‘Socialist’ Obama At Florida Revival

There was an interesting article in Alternet that addressed how Christians in the UK, for the most part, are opposed to social Darwinism and believe in the economic left policies. Over in the UK they read their bibles and subscribe to the same philosophies and teachings of the bible as Christians here and they come away with the sense that society as a whole has the responsibility to those less fortunate, yet in our country, listening to the GOP platform and their political and economic agenda you would think that the GOP Christians are the secular ones. If one were dropped into the House during their sessions you would think that they were guilty of worshiping false idols of gold and coin with absolute disregard for those less fortunate and no sense of a societal responsibility to them.Once you get so far down, especially in this country unless you have a strong support system it is almost impossible to claw your way back up. The GOP is intent on eviscerating those support programs in order to give tax breaks to the wealthy.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost